Good lord, waaaaaay too high.

He's declining.

He can't play 3rd line centre (other than key faceoffs), so you need to shift him to 2nd line left wing.

Hint: he won't be the best winger on that line.

So he needs to fit into a salary structure where he's not making a lot of money on the 2nd line - or we are better off with Knies or another guy on the cheap.


It's got to be around $4M, or it just doesn't work.
- Atomic Wedgie

A) There is no "good Lord".
B) Im not suggesting he will be worth 6m....but I could see him asking for it.
Besides, people seem to believe the cap will be at a billion dollars in a few years, so JT at 6m wouldnt be the worse thing.
Does Tre do 4m x 6 or 6m x 4? Which would be worse?
Or does he let him walk?

new blog everyone

Im not suggesting he will be worth 6m....but I could see him asking for it.
Besides, people seem to believe the cap will be at a billion dollars in a few years, so JT at 6m wouldnt be the worse thing.
Does Tre do 4m x 6 or 6m x 4? Which would be worse?
Or does he let him walk?
- Fakepartofme

Yes. Walk him. Bye.

He's in offensive decline and not worth the money to be a top-six player at 35+.

He's terrible defensively and does nothing to improve the bottom-six forwards.

He has no role on this team if he's not scoring points.

I fully concede that projecting his decline is more conjecture and voodoo than science, but let's just do simple back of the envelope math (and by "math, I mean "math, simple extrapolation, and yes - voodoo):

Last year, his decline over the year before was 18.75%.

Which is not unheard of when a player reaches 33 years of age.

Let's just say that his decline will be linear, instead of a more precipitous decline.

That means this year - the last year of his contract - he'll hit 53 points.

Then let's say the Leafs offer him a 4-year contract (no way in hell I'd do more than 3, but hey, it's summer and we have nothing to talk about).

The numbers on a simple, straight regression would look like this:

2025-26: 43 points

2026-27: 35 points

2027-28: 28 points

2028-29: 23 points.

Now you may criticize my simple formula, saying it puts too much weight on a 1-season decline.

But there's a lot to suggest that the numbers would dip much more severely in the next five years:

His ice time will inevitably decline.

His PP time will inevitably decline.

Father Time is one cruel Mother-Bozaker.

In my eyes, the only way it makes financial sense to re-sign Tavares is if he takes a 3-year deal, and it's at a number that pays him as a secondary winger that makes scores less than 30-35 points a year.

We can get a guy to replace those numbers at the UFA winger store for $3.5M any July 1st. And we can get that guy in the "Plays a Heavy Game" aisle.
- Atomic Wedgie

his scoring regression last season is more PP time

his 5v5 has been consistent the last 4 seasons

29
30
39
37 (2023-24)

which is pretty much consistent through his whole career. except his 1 outlier season (first with leafs)

im not as worried about him as much as most seem to be. he is actually aging well imo